The Truth about Taiwan (Taichung only actually...)

Ok, enough hating.

It's been about a week since I've returned from my visit to Taichung, Taiwan. It was really a whirlwind visit and I think my main regret is that we weren't able to get better flights so that our trip could be a couple days more.

This was my first visit to Taiwan and I spent all of it in Taichung, never stepping into Taipei other than arriving and departing from the airport. Don't think it's a huge loss coz I can alway do Taipei any time on my own, but going on an exchange visit to Taichung is another experience altogether.

What they say is true. Taiwan is really famous for her 'small eats' or 小吃. From my previous blog posts, you can see the interesting variety of local snacks. I really wonder how the taiwanese can keep slim and fit, given their easy access to such yummy stuff. But, for me, although the snacks were really delicious, I think that Singapore definitely has better variety when it comes to snacks from different races. One of the nice benefits of being a multi-cultural place. Taiwan however has the huge advantage of still having lots of character. When it comes to food, there's always a famous shop to go to or a 老招牌to visit. In Singapore, all our food starts looking the same and there are branches of popular foods everywhere so everything feels really mass-

produced. For example, Old Chang Kee used to be a 老招牌 in Singapore. If memory serves me right, it was always a treat to travel all the way to Rex theatre with my parents to grab an Old Chang Kee Curry Puff. Nowadays, Old Chang Kee is at every corner and mall basement and they probably manufacture the curry puffs in some mega food factory. Talk about a loss of character.

The Taiwanese are a very interesting people. To me, they are somewhere in between the mainland Chinese and the Japanese. Two examples come to mind. When we landed, I went to 7-11 and was elated to find that they served Oden, just like in Japan! And at half the price! Unless I'm very wrong, Oden is a pretty Japanese thing. The other surprise came when I was at a mall until closing time. All the sales staff stood at the escalators and thanked (in unison) everyone who walked past them on the way out of the mall

. Again, this was really reminiscent of what I've seen in Japan.

As far as tourist sights are concerned, I really didn't get to see much. Other than shopping and visiting Lu Kang (kinda like a conserved old street market), I didn't go to any other tourist spots so I guess I can't say much about this. I'll leave

that for my next trip to Taipei. However, I did manage an overnight visit to the mountains to stay at a chalet run by the indigenous people. It was a nice experience, complete with a campfire and traditional dance. Also got a chance to pound sticky rice in to make traditional mua chee! nice!

I definitely don't think this will be last trip to Taiwan. With this taster, I am sure I will be back again, probably soonish.